The Lipstick Chronicles 1 Paperback release December 2006 ISBN: 042521432 read an excerpt The hiliariously sexy chronicle of five women at work, at play, and in love... by Kathryn Shay, Fiona Kelly, Vivian Leiber, Lynn Emery Together, they make up Allheart.com, the online greeting card company where love often falls apart, lives occasionally go awry--but friends are always there to put everything back together again... With lives in progress and love in limbo, they aren't asking for much. Just a decent man, a good cocktail, and a close friend. In the meantime, two out of three ain't bad... The Lipstick Chronicles 2 Paperback release March 2007 In MORE LIPSTICK CHRONICLES, Taking Care of Business by Kathryn Shay reunites readers with Allheart CEO Elyssa Wentworth and venture capitalist Joe Monteign. In volume one, they finally (!) got together and the future looked bright.  But in volume two, Joe is unhappy that Elyssa is spending time with designer Parker Quest. She insists that this is business, but Joe sees the way Quest looks at her. As Joes jealousy rises, Elyssa is tempted to have an affair with Parker, who is much more pleasant to be with these days than Joe is. Who will she pick? What will she do?  Read this new volume and see. "...plenty of camaraderie and romance lighting up the DC skies..." --Harriet Klausner, www.thebestreviews.com "...very much working women's romances..." --Flora Bell, from www.thebestreviews.com "...very entertaining novella by Ms Shay...an enjoyable anthology indeed." www.mrsgiggles.com

Dear Reader--

In 1999, I was asked by Lark Productions to write an online novella for an anthology called THE LIPSTICK CHRONICLES. The plan was to start with a setup given by the publisher—an online greeting card company run by a staff of women--and have five authors write a story about a different character. Since I wanted to go first and not have to follow anyone, I got to develop the company and introduce the women. My husband is a businessman and helped me understand how the company should run, and especially what a venture capitalist does, given my heroine, Elyssa was president of Allheart.com and the hero, Joe, was an investor for Highwire Industries.  We had great fun figuring out the in and outs of backing a company.  After the first volume was released, Lark asked for a second story with the same characters from three of the authors. So I also ended the anthology by giving Joe and Elyssa even more problems that they had to work out. (See blurb and except on this site for plots.)

In 2002, The Berkley Publishing Group bought the anthology, and put the stories out in trade format in two volumes. It was great fun to see them in print, and both did well numbers wise.

Then, COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE took an interest in the books and contracted to excerpt my story "Men at Work" in their December issue. Though they combined the love scenes and made the excerpt really steamy, it was a thrill to get my writing in a national magazine with an estimated one million readers.
                  
Now, THE LIPSTICK CHRONICLES is back.  Berkley is reissuing both volumes in mass market paperback, the first in December 2006, the second in March 2007. I’m so glad we’ll be reaching a whole different audience.  I hope a lot of new readers out there pick them up a well as my current fans.